STEVE Bruce's pre-match words of advice will be familar to Blues tomorrow: "Play the game, not the occasion".

STEVE Bruce's pre-match words of advice will be familar to Blues tomorrow: "Play the game, not the occasion".

"You have to be disciplined to do your jobs," the manager said. "There are going to be times when the emotion takes over, when you pick the wrong option. That's when you have to keep your concentration.

"People don't understand how mentally tough it is, games like these. "I remember playing in an FA Cup semi-final against Oldham and after 10, 12 minutes I couldn't breathe.

"I was experienced, I was 30, but it got to me. We have to guard against that, we have to clear our minds and focus on what we have to do - and I'm sure we can."

The pulsating victory at Wolves was great entertainment for the neutral, but left Bruce at his wit's end.

"The goals could have been avoided," he said. "We let our concentration slip. We were too open against Wolves and our defending was poor at times in comparison to how we've been.

"Again, the occasion can take over. We had the mentality that we had to win, but we still had to do our jobs properly.

"We have been working on that this week, our defending. We have kept 17 clean sheets this season, but not had one for five games."